


Wilt Thou Taste Love's Bitter Fruit?

by Drachenkinder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Loki survived the encounter with Thanos, Lokicest, M/M, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Thorki referenced, Young Loki is the equivalent of 18 -20, blame tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24634093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drachenkinder/pseuds/Drachenkinder
Summary: Loki's search for a lost cure leads him to his past and an encounter with his younger self.
Relationships: Loki/Loki (Marvel), Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	Wilt Thou Taste Love's Bitter Fruit?

When a seidr master walks the ways between realms, it is important that they keep their goal firmly in mind lest they wonder from the path and become lost. Loki knew this. He’d traveled these dangerous trails before. Though trails was a misnomer. For each route was only there for the time he tread upon it. A possibility more than a long established road. But there were markers, a monument, a fallen tree, an eroded stone pinnacle that kept him on the right track. This time however he was setting out with the goal of not a place in the realms, but an item. 

For a fever was sweeping through the children of New Asgard and the symptoms were all too well known. It started with lassitude, moved onto sleeping over long and ended with the afflicted slipping into a coma and eventually death. An ancient childhood disease for the Aesir and one long ago conquered. The cure was a tea made of the white summer berries that once grew in abundance on the mountain slopes of Asgard. A small daily dose of the bitter brew over the course of a week and recovery was assured. A ritual of childhood taken for granted. The problem was, neither berry nor seed nor tea were to be found among the survivors of Asgard’s fall. Nothing the healers of New Asgard or Earth tried had shown any sign of promise. The township itself was now under quarantine for fear the illness could spread to the human inhabitants of the planet. 

Thus Loki had left New Asgard behind, secure in Thor’s capable rule to search the eight in the hope that somewhere in the remaining worlds, there was stored a quantity of the needed cure. He traveled the misty edges of the realms searching for something that may not even exist. For none of the other civilized races suffered from the sleeping death and the bitter berries had little value outside of Asgard. The bushes had been so common in the wild and the cure so simple to make, no healer had ever bothered to synthesize it. It was frustrating that he himself had once kept a large store of the dried berries, for in addition to being a cure for the disease, it was a mild tonic and Loki had once found the sharply acidic tea refreshing, before he switched to the more traditional wine and mead of his adulthood. 

He could picture that carved wooden casket, its contents protected by his first successful preservation spells. He’d lost the thing at some point in his youth and that doubled his frustration. If he’d held onto it long enough, he would had secreted it away in one of the dimensional pockets whose creation he had later mastered. There it would have stayed, forgotten as many of his once treasured items had been forgotten.

A boulder appeared from the mist and Loki headed toward it, he was at last feeling the ephemeral tug that told him he was headed towards his goal, a moment later he passed a stream, and he then clambered over a low rock wall and past a few flowering bushes that seemed vaguely familiar. The mists became thinner and then faded into the pale dispersing fog of morning. Loki stood aghast, staring at a small stone cottage nestled into the side of a hill. Slowly he turned his head, as his heart hammered in a sick combination of hope and terror. 

Below him spread a familiar vista, the trees arrayed in the fading russet hues of late autumn, the sea gleamed in the dawn light and off to the left… Loki gave an almost silent sob, for there were the towers of Asgard city, a golden sparkle on the horizon. He was on Asgard. Perhaps because he had been so long in contact with two of the infinity stones and exposed to a third, he had been given this ability to walk through time as well as space. Or perhaps his own dire need had taken him to this extreme. Somehow he was now in the Asgard of his childhood and youth, for shortly after he became an adult, the simple cottage behind him had been pulled down to make way for a grander building. Loki’s private mountain retreat had become Thor’s hunting lodge where he hosted his friends in comfort. 

Loki was shaking inside, for he knew he should not be here and yet he ached to stay. To retreat to this time before his illusions were shattered and he still believed in the love of his family and the false promise of the golden realm. 

He calmed his hammering heart and turned from the tempting dream. Every moment he was here threatened the world he knew, more than any plague did. He had to get what he came for and return to his own time before he was discovered. That frail tugging told him his goal lay within the cottage and Loki turned his back on the heartbreaking view of the world he had known and silently approached the building. 

There was no sign of life within and the privacy wards were up. Loki keyed in the runes and they fell to his touch. They were, after all his own work. Again he paused. The place had been recently occupied. There was the scent of the cologne he’d once favored in the air. The lamp on the table yet burned, though pale light was streaming through the windows. A book lay open beside the lamp and a glass held the dregs of wine. A collection of notes were pushed to one side. He recognized his own handwriting. It was a list of various plants used by the Ljósálfar to enhance seidr and the known side effects of using such plants. 

How young he had been, how he had strived to improve himself and win Odin’s favor. Even then he’d been covetous of power. He remembered the research. This was the last time he’d visited the cottage, for already he’d given into Thor’s bullying requests to turn the property over to him that it be “put to good use, instead of wasting it so you have yet another place to sulk.”

An ancient anger boiled up at the self-centered ass young Thor was. Loki examined it and let it go. That Thor was as dead as the boy who was once so desperate to gain his brother’s approval. They had broken each other apart, destroyed their old relationship and burned their past in the ashes of Asgard. What they had found on the trip to earth, and the following battles against the Mad Titian was a new and precious thing. They were neither of them the boys or young men they had once been. 

Loki turned with a sigh and began to search the cottage. The tug that had led him here was not precise enough to tell him the exact location of the casket. Nor did he remember this last days here with any clarity, so he had no idea where his past self was, nor how long he’d be away. He glanced around the room and saw the fishing net was missing. 

Loki gave a sigh of relief. His former self had gone to catch his breakfast. That should give him a good hour. He knew it took that long to dam the small stream and net any trapped fish and the sun was only now cresting the horizon. Nonetheless he had to be quick lest his old self discover him and the timeline be altered. He shook off his wave of nostalgia and began checking the cupboards. The small kitchen yielded nothing, nor did the front room. He cursed his magpie habit of cluttering every surface with his belongings and never keeping any sort of order in his places of residence. The bath likewise was empty of all but a plethora of grooming tools and bathing oils and soaps. Had he really been that obsessed with his appearance that he required three different hair dressings? Loki shook his head and went to search the bedroom. The clutter here was redoubled. The wardrobe was stuffed with clothing, and every level surface adorned with scarves and gloves and hats of various designs. By Auðumbla’s teats what did he think he needed with this many outfits here in the hills? What a popinjay he had been. It was no wonder no one took him seriously. 

Loki was on his hands and knees, half under the bed shoving aside an army’s worth of shoes when he heard a young man’s voice declare,

“What thief dares to enter the dwelling of the mage prince of Asgard?”

“SHIT!” Loki said. 

He considered an illusion, but discarded the idea at once. He would be able to see past his own magic. Perhaps if he could simply cover his face and subdue the boy there would be no trouble. He conjured a mask and emerged from under the bed with as much dignity as he could.

The youth stood weaponless beside the doorway, his hands on his hips and an expression of arrogance on his young face. Loki could see the shadow of an illusion that barely blurred his pale features as well as an image of a bigger, stronger version of the young man, dressed in full armor and holding an oversized sword which circled around behind him.

“Get thee gone before I take off thy head. Thou art lucky that Loki, son of Odin, is feeling merciful this day.” The words were echoed from the advancing illusion. 

The boy’s arrogant attitude was spoiled by the dirty tear tracks that marred his pretty face and the dribble of snot threatening his pouting lips. 

Loki moved toward the door as if scrambling to escape the illusionary attacker but at the last minute he grabbed the young man and pinned him to the wall. The boy let out a surprised squeak and tried to stab Loki with the dagger concealed in his sleeve. A too familiar move. A moment later and both wrists were pinned above his head. To his surprise the boy ceased struggling and burst into tears.

“If it’s my death you want than take it. For death cannot be any worse than life,” he sobbed.

“That would be to my own detriment, young prince.” Loki said. “It’s not your life I require, only your tea casket.”

To Loki’s embarrassment, the boy only cried harder.

“So this is but another joke meant to shame me.” The youth had left off the formal language. “Which of my brother’s friends sent you? Or was it Thor himself? He hates me enough to pull such a stupid theft.” 

He sniffled and Loki let him go and stepped back a pace. 

“The joke is on you.” the youth continued. “I lost the damned thing a week ago. Search away. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” 

To Loki’s amazement the boy turned his back and retreated to the front room, where he unearthed another bottle of wine from the clutter and poured its contents into the dirty glass. He swallowed it without any finesse and glared at Loki. “Nothing fucking matters anymore.”

Loki realized the boy was drunk. He felt a twinge of remorse and returned to his search. No wonder his memories of his last visit to the cottage were a blur if he’d spent it in a drunken stupor.

“Thor doesn’t hate you.” Loki said, stung by the pain in the boy’s voice. “He’s a self-satisfied prick who can’t see beyond his own inflated ego at this point, but he does love you under all his oblivious stupidity.”

“You should be beheaded for your treasonous words.” the boy said, but there was no conviction in his voice. “How would you know what my oaf of a brother feels?”

“Because he told me.” Loki gave up on the bedroom and returned to the front of the cottage. 

“Who are you that he would confide in you?” the boy said from the chair he was draped over. “And why didn’t you fall for my illusion? It was quite good. Even if I do say so myself.”

The sight of his own dirty youthful face distressed him. The hopeless look in his eyes made Loki want to comfort this idiot, who let down his guard in front of a potential assassin. Loki knew the boy wouldn’t remember anything as drunk as he was. Or if he did he’d put it down to a hallucination brought on by too much alcohol. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d drank to the point of black out. Maybe he would cooperate if Loki told him the truth. He could tell his younger self was at the point of unguarded coherency that marked such an episode. 

“For the same reason young prince, mine will not work on you.” Loki removed the mask and tossed his hair back. “I have never been very good at fooling myself.”

The effect was less then he’d expected. The boy blinked at him and said. “Norns, I must be drunk if I’m calling up illusions of myself to harass me.” He looked at the glass, emptied it in a final swallow and began fumbling after the bottle.

Loki stared at him. Anger at his own pathetic behavior caused him to stalk across the room. He knocked the glass from the boy’s hand and slapped him across the face. 

“Does that feel like an illusion you mewling brat?”

The little snake was quick, Loki had to give him that. The second dagger penetrated his armor and grazed his side before Loki had him subdued. Loki flipped him belly side down over the table. 

“Listen, you sorry excuse for a man. I need that tea. In my time, your own future, there are children dying for lack of it and I don’t have time to indulge your drunken ramblings.” He bounced the struggling younger man on the table knocking the wind from him. “Damn.” Loki muttered “How was it that no one strangled me for being such a self-absorbed looser.”

“I’m not a looser. If you are the future me as you claim, then tell me something no one but myself could know.” The boy spat.

There were many secrets which no one but he could know, but he remembered why he’d retreated to the cottage this last time. It had been a newly forged secret, dark and raw and one he would never have breathed to another soul. 

“You are up here trying to deny that you are in love with your own brother. Deeply, helplessly in love.”

“Fuck!” the young man said and burst into yet another bout of tears.

Loki turned him around. He was going to slap the fool again when something inside his own soul echoed the helpless adoration he’d once had for Thor. He knew there were years of empty longing ahead of this version of himself. Years where that longing became twisted into a kind of hate. Years when he had lost himself to his own self-hatred at his unnatural desire. Until his own jealous actions would bring all the illusions and lies of his life crashing down around him and shatter his very soul. This young man had yet to experience that. Part of Loki wanted to step in and try to prevent it from occurring, though he knew he could not. Time would splinter and he would have no home to return to. Diminished as New Asgard was it contained his beloved brother. From this bleary eyed boy, through betrayal, rage and the fires of Ragnarok he had been reborn, and Loki would not trade this young man’s trials for the future he now had. 

But he could sympathize with his pain. He could brush the soft curls from his own younger face and conjure a wet rag to wipe the tears from his cheeks and the snot from his nose. He could kiss the blotchy forehead and hold the shaking boy in his arms. And when those tear wet lashes lifted and those sad eyes met his own he could press his mouth to those soft wine flavored lips.

When the boy’s drunken sorrow and guilt and unrequited love turned into a lust for any attention, it was so easy to lay him down on the table. Easy to melt away mud wet clothing with a touch and to run practiced hands over his unscarred body. He knew what he liked, what he wanted, and his younger self rose to his experienced touch with a cry of passion and affirmation.

Part of his mind clamored that he didn’t have time for this, but Loki now understood that he did. New Asgard’s crisis lay one hundred and more years in the future. He could return to the very hour he left. Another part of his mind objected was that it was wrong to so engage with his younger self. But where was the crime? He was of age and at worst this was nothing more than masturbation. But what of the time line? He quieted that final objection with the fact that he didn’t remember this last week. No, nothing that happened this morning would have any real impact on his own past. But perhaps he could give himself some desperately needed comfort. Some deep private hope that would help him get through the suffering to come.

He lowered his mouth to the boy’s eager one and he kissed him with all the love and passion he knew he craved. When those slender fingers fumbled at his own clothing he dismissed it with a wave of his hand, baring his flesh to the youth’s touch and gaze.

“Oh.” young Loki said. His fingertips traced over the scars that covered his elder self’s skin. He paused to place his hand over the knurled flesh over Loki’s heart. It only just covered the vicious scar. His eyes widened in sudden fear.

Loki took his hand and led it to the matching scar on his back. When the boy gave a small cry he bent and kissed him again. 

“We survived.” Loki said. “No matter what the Norns throw at us we survive. No wound, no pain, no loss ever defeats us.”

“None?” Young Loki asked with horror in his eyes.

“None.” Loki answered and carded his fingers through the youth’s soft curls. “We are stronger than our enemies.” He kissed down the pale exposed throat. “And our brother never, ever gives up on us. Even when we think we are alone. When all hope has abandoned us and we believe he has also. Thor will not. There is a fire in him that will draw him to our side across all the distance of the universe. Even death herself cannot rend us apart. Nor can you.” He sucked the rose nipples into hard points and licked over them with warm wet laps. 

“He is young now and as much of a fool as you are. But in time, in time Loki, he will come to love you as you will come to love him.”

He took one nipple in his teeth and bit and tugged in the manner he liked and his younger self made a harsh keening cry. 

In time,” Loki panted, “you will learn to love yourself. And to forgive the drunken, lost, ass of a boy you are now.” He repeated the maneuver on the other nipple and was rewarded with another cry and a sharp tug on his hair that pulled his mouth up to be inexpertly, but enthusiastically plundered.

“LOVE ME!” his younger self demanded, tears running once more over his face. “I hate myself! Love me!”

“I do. I shall.” Loki said and moved down to lick a strip up the youth’s straining cock. The boy gasped and bucked, and then unexpectedly tugged his hair. 

“No!” he cried.

At Loki’s concerned glance, his younger self said, with a face that grew redder with each word. “I want… I want to love you too. To do that to you too.”

“Ah.” Loki grinned like a wolf and the boy moaned in response. “You want to suck my cock?”

Young Loki’s hands went over his blushing face but he nodded.

Loki laughed and grasped the youth around his waist and heaved him over his shoulder. They were of the same height but his younger version’s body was still soft with easy living, his only exercise the daily training bouts when at the palace, peppered with the occasional hunting expedition. The plump bottom now in reach was especially tempting and Loki gave it a few experimental swats as he carried the young man to the bedroom. His action was met with a soft “Oh! Oh!” of excitement. Encouraged Loki dropped the youth onto the bed and flipped him face down. He pinned him there with one hand and gave him a hard slap on his butt with the other. Young Loki’s toes curled. He crossed his legs, twisted his hands together behind his back and squirmed in an invitation so open it could not have been more obvious had it been tattooed on those downy buttocks. 

Loki laughed softly and spanked the ivory cheeks until they bloomed a ruddy pink. With every stinging slap his younger self moaned and wiggled and gasped until he was sobbing “Yes! Yes! More!” The fervent pleading was met with just as fervent of a response and Loki increased the strength and speed of the slaps to beat his younger self’s ass to a deep painful scarlet until the boy’s hands came undone and tried to block the last searing blows.

When Loki paused to admire his work the teary eyed youth squirmed out from under his hand, whipped around and pushed Loki onto his butt were he immediately grabbed his cock and tried to swallow it whole. Loki cursed as teeth grazed his erection and pulled the boy off by his hair. He gave him a soft cuff to the ear to get his attention. 

“Slower boy. You’re not trying to gobble down a sausage. Cover you lower teeth with your tongue and your upper with your lip.” As young Loki did as suggested and returned to his sucking, Loki stroked his hair. “Better. Pay attention to how I respond. There you go. You know where to press that tongue. Good.” Loki shifted onto his side to address the youth’s jutting cock with his own mouth. He lapped his tongue over the head and tasted the hot salt of arousal. “Follow my lead and one day you’ll be as good of a cocksucker as I.” 

The boy made a sound of disapproval at what he still considered an insult. 

Loki cupped one hot butt cheek in his hand and kneaded. “You do want Thor to be impressed the first time you suck his cock don’t you?” He took the head between his lips and swirled his tongue over the heated flesh. 

Young Loki moaned and tried to fuck into Loki’s mouth but was restrained by the hand encircling the base of his shaft. Finally he shifted his grip, grabbed Loki’s ass with one hand and repeated the maneuver. 

“Good boy” Loki thought and brought him to the brink of orgasm over and over again with sure deliberate strokes of his hand and the warm slick heat of his talented mouth. That his younger self was a quick study and soon was doing the same to him was a sweet ecstatic torment. When he moved lower to part the red punished cheeks and lick over that tightly furled hole, he almost passed the brink when he felt the same wet probing touch on his own entrance. 

After a heady five minutes of rimming himself, and being licked in return, Loki pulled away. He knew he had had some experience with women at this age, but he couldn’t remember if he’d allowed a man to mount him before or after this date. He’d had offers of course, but had he taken anyone up on them? Loki felt to ask, would raise suspicions that he was an imposter. He’d always been a suspicious bastard, even in his youth. 

He stroked his fingertips over the slick wet entrance and asked. “Do you want our cock up your ass?”

“Yes.” young Loki whimpered. 

“Good.” Loki growled.

He pulled lube from a pocket dimension, (Thor did like to fuck in the most unexpected places and he’d learned to be prepared.) and poured it over the dark opening and his pressing fingertips. His younger self moaned and went back to tonguing Loki’s asshole and kissing the rim. 

Loki opened him slowly. Young Loki was tight as hell and if this wasn’t his first time it had been a long while since he’d been fucked. Loki had never had a desire for the inexperienced for the sake of their inexperience before, but the twisted thought of taking his own virginity aroused him even more. 

He turned his fingers in the tight hole and curled them to rub gently over the prostate. The youth stopped licking and a made a strangled sound.

“Too much?” 

“Ah! Ah! Oh fuck! I want you! Now!”

Loki was in a state nearly as bad as his younger self and he needed no further reassurance. He removed his fingers, wiped them on the sheets and moved to kneel between young Loki’s thighs. 

“Norns,” he thought, looking down on the slender muscled body spread out for him. The wet parted reddened lips, the thick black lashes over soft green eyes (glazed at the moment with lust and alcohol) and the delicate lines of his cheekbones and jaw. The impossibly long neck which he wanted to mark with his teeth and the smooth pale skin. 

“I was stunning.” He thought. “I might have been a silly clotheshorse, but it’s little wonder I had so many trying for my attentions. And to think I’d convinced myself that any suitors were only attempting to use me to get close to Thor.” 

He ran his hands down the youth’s body and stroked the thick lengths of their cocks as they rested side by side. It was one area where he physically outmatched his brother. He smiled at the memory off the first time Thor had seen him aroused.

Their eyes met again and the same words spilled from their lips. “You are so beautiful.”

They laughed, and then Loki raised his younger self’s thighs to his shoulders. He poured the lube in generous amounts over both cocks and stroked them together. The youth interlaced his fingers with Loki’s and their hands moved in tandem up and down. Familiar and yet strange, the rhythm perfect. 

After a few more strokes they stopped and Loki shifted his hips and pressed the head of his cock to young Loki’s slick rim. The fingering had loosened him a little, but his asshole was still very tight, more so as he kept clenching as Loki tried to enter him. He gave a soft cry of pain and Loki stopped. He took the young man’s cock in his hand and stroked him again. The youth’s naivety was written on his face in a mixture of fear and lust combined.

“Relax young prince.” Loki said. “Push out when I push in. I’ll stop if it becomes too much.” Which would be difficult because Loki wanted to fuck his younger self. Wanted to badly. 

Apparently the desire was mutual because the boy nodded and Loki eased in a little. He stopped when young Loki clenched, only proceeding when the youth relaxed around him and wiggled his bottom to signal he wanted more. He was as greedy for Loki’s thick cock as Loki was for his tight hole. Though it was excruciatingly slow, Loki was finally buried to the balls in his own virgin rump. The youth tangled his fingers in Loki’s longer locks, leaned forward and pulled his elder down for a passionate kiss. Loki returned the gesture as young Loki's right hand joined his around the youth's cock. With fingers entwined they stroked his hard shaft. Loki rocked his hips and the boy moaned into his mouth.

Loki knew his desires better than the youth himself. He left his hungry mouth only to bite his pale throat and nip and suck at his nipples until they were swollen and purple. The boy followed his lead, bending himself double to leave Loki’s chest and throat as bruised and aching as his own. Loki know how the boy’s ass burned and throbbed at the thick cock sliding in his tight hole. Loki also knew how much pleasure that hot sting gave him and he increased his pace. Their hair was tugged hard enough that strands pulled loose and wrapped around grasping fingers that let go, only to get a stronger grip and pull harder. They greedily nipped and sucked each other’s lips until the hot iron tang of blood was on their tongues. Loki was relentless, driving into the bucking, writhing body beneath him and young Loki was just as ravenous for his elder’s passion and his love.

And love it was, as Loki poured words of admiration and adoration into the boy’s praise starved ears. He petted and caressed him as much as he hurt him, and he gave his younger self every touch, every word of encouragement and affection that he’d hungered for when he was at his vulnerable age. 

Young Loki’s seidr roused and Loki cried out as it flickered over his skin in an intimate touch that went beyond the physical. He reached for the boy with his power and let it flow over channels new to magic, giving him a taste of what he would command in time. He felt the young man’s awed response as their eyes locked. The fiery joining of their seidr was the final stimulation that slammed them both into shuddering climax.

“I love you Loki.” Loki said and released into the grasping heat of his younger self. Young Loki cried out and spilled hot into their slick clasped hands, splattering sweat damp skin to the same pulsing rhythm that filled the inner recesses of his overwhelmed body with his older self’s seed.

The breaking wave receded in a slow cascade of shivering pleasure and gasped breaths. Their frantic thrusts slowed, their tightly gripping hands loosened, their kisses became softer, gentler until they ceased altogether and they lay in a drowsy embrace. The boy’s thighs fell to Loki’s sides. His cock slipped from the youth’s wet channel to trail a puddle over the sheets. They lay drifting in lazy aftermath as heartbeats slowed and their breathing deepened into sleep. 

A crow called from a nearby tree and was answered by the caw of another from the cottage’s roof. Sunlight crawled across the wall through a gap in the curtains and Loki watched it with wakening eyes. He raised up on his elbows and cupped the youthful face and kissed the wine flushed cheeks.

“Foolish brokenhearted boy.” he said. 

“Love you Loki.” Young Loki woke enough to slur. His hazy green eyes closed and his breathing returned to a deep nasal snore.

Loki rose off him. With a gesture the sweat and heat and mess was cleared from his own body and he was clothed in his traveling leathers. He glanced around the room in a final attempt at finding the tea box. A sparkle in the gloom caught his attention. There, perched on the top of the high wardrobe and only visible from the bed, was the gold capped corner of the casket, glowing in a sunbeam. Loki climbed to his feet, pulled the box from its hiding placed and checked the interior. It was packed full in preparation for his retreat to the cottage. There was more than enough here to brew all the medicine they needed, enough to provide seeds to coax a new generation of the berry plants to take root in the foreign soil of New Asgard. 

Loki turned to where his younger self lay passed out on the rumpled sheets. He spared a fraction of his power to clean the youth’s body, and the bed, of the sticky evidence of their coupling. He left the bruises marking the pale skin and the reddened handprints adorning his sore bottom. Let his younger self enjoy them while he could. He smoothed the sheets and covered him with the thrown aside blankets. Loki brushed the sweat tangled curls from the pale brow and kissed him a final time. 

“You will survive Loki. You are stronger then all who oppose you, even your own worst self. No matter how many times you are broken, you will always rise from the wreckage. Someday you will know love, not longing, not desire, not passion nor jealousy nor even romance. But the quiet careful love of those who have been damaged beyond all mending and yet gave birth to hope in the refuge of each other’s scarred souls.”

He picked up the casket and left the cottage, pausing only to steal a bottle of wine and a jar of his favorite pomade. With his treasures stored in his pocket dimension he stopped and once more gazed toward the towers of Asgard. At this hour of the morning young Thor would still be abed, sleeping off the previous night’s carousing. His mother would be giving the servants their daily orders, while Odin groused in the background about whichever Jarl or diplomat was annoying him at the moment. A longing to see them one more time tugged at his heart.

Loki shook his head. He was not going to get trapped in regret and thoughts of what might have been. Nor would he set aside hard won truth to grab for an illusion. He turned away from his past and set his sight toward his true home. 

Where Thor waited his return. His brother, his lover and his equal. The King of New Asgard straightened his tunic and stepped without a backward glance into the gathering mist.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a little plot here and a bit of comfort and hurt. Inspired by all the Lokicest art that's been popping up on my dash at tumblr. I wasted a perfectly good day writing this.


End file.
